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Eknath Easwaran’s Mantram and Passage Meditation as Applied Indian Psychology: Psycho-Spiritual and Health Effects

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Abstract

We review the life and legacy of Eknath Easwaran (1910–1999) from the perspective of modern and Indian Psychology. A Kerala-born professor of English literature, Easwaran in 1959 travelled to the USA where he taught a system of eight spiritual practices known as passage meditation (PM). Its characteristic features include its meditative focus on memorized inspirational passages and using mantram repetition as a primarily “portable” practice throughout the day. The PM method is distinctive in emphasizing the principle, otherwise neglected in the modern psychology of meditation, that “we become what we meditate on”—a principle that possesses a basis in traditional Indian sources that include the Vedas, Puranas, Adi Śaṅkara, and Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. Two major programs of empirical research have evaluated Easwaran’s practices, each publishing multiple randomized controlled trials. We summarize findings from (i) studies of the full PM program, and (ii) studies of the Mantram Repetition Program (MRP), based on three of the eight PM points. Randomized evidence links each program to reduced stress, improved mental health, improved mindfulness, and increases in various spiritual measures. We describe ways that PM/MRP empirical research has reflected Indian Psychology perspectives, and suggest that Easwaran’s legacy enriches Indian Psychology with added value in at least three ways: emphasizing the importance of the choice of meditative focus, offering universally framed support for devotional (bhakti) orientations to spirituality, and supplying tools for improving how spiritual diversity is addressed in modern institutions such as health care, schools, and other organizations.

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Notes

  1. Many of Easwaran’s books provide biographical information; the three volumes that offer the fullest accounts of Easwaran's guru and sādhanā are two by Easwaran (2000; 2010) and one by Flinders and Flinders (1989).

  2. Non-US (indigenous) publishing houses have translated and published editions of Passage Meditation (Easwaran, 2016) in Bulgarian, Chinese, Czech, Dutch, French, German, Hungarian, Korean, Lithuanian, Romanian, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, and Telugu.

  3. Since 2009, Easwaran’s translations of the Bhagavad Gītā, the Dhammapada, and of a collection of important Upanishads have each been the best-selling translations of these scriptures in the USA. In the USA in 2016, they each outsold the second best-selling translation in their category by more than 3:1. That year, Easwaran’s (2007) Upanishads accounted for nearly two-thirds (65%) of all Upanishad translations sold in the USA, and the second editions have together sold more than 470,000 copies to date (personal communication, Duncan Craig, Nilgiri Press Business Manager, September 14, 2017).

  4. For book lists, videos, and online presentations, see http://bmcm.org.

  5. Rao and Paranjpe (2016) offer psychological perspectives on the overlap and integration of classical yogas, noting that “There is no exclusive involvement of specific aspects of the mind, whether cognition, emotion, or volition in the four major forms of yoga. This makes sense in that the person is simultaneously a knower, enjoyer/sufferer, and agent, although cognition, emotion, and volition may sometimes appear to follow one-another” (pp. 202–203, emphasis in original). They also note the existence of various other contemporary systems of practice that integrate multiple classic yogas, such as methods associated with Aurobindo and with the Datta sampradāya.

  6. For example, eminent religious studies scholar Huston Smith met Easwaran multiple times, and wrote that “No one in modern times is more qualified – no, make that ‘as qualified’ – to translate the epochal Classics of Indian Spirituality than Eknath Easwaran. And the reason is clear. It is impossible to get to the heart of those classics unless you live them, and he did live them. My admiration of the man and his works is boundless” (Smith, e.g., quoted in Easwaran, 2007, back cover, and several other publications). Nadkarni (2017) described Easwaran as “respected worldwide as one of the most profound writers and orators on religion and spirituality” (p. 146). Easwaran (2008, p. 13) wrote that “I have taught this program so long, helped so many people apply it over so many decades, that I know every step of the way.”

  7. Calculated using Bormann, Walter, Leary, and Glaser (2017) as d = (64.79 − 55.38)/12.66 = 0.74.

  8. Kabat-Zinn (1994), developer of the MBSR program that was the earliest and remains the most influential mindfulness-based intervention, acknowledged that “As much as I can,” he tried “to avoid using the word ‘spiritual’ altogether” (Kabat-Zinn, 1994, p. 263).

  9. For example, at Campus Health Services [Counseling and Wellness Services] at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill (Dan Darnell, Clinical Psychologist, personal communication 8 September 2017).

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Acknowledgements

We are grateful for the comments by Tim Flinders and Brian Ruppenthal on an earlier version of this manuscript. Photograph of Eknath Easwaran in Fig. 1 is used with permission of the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation (http://bmcm.org), which operates Nilgiri Press, publisher of the original editions of Easwaran’s books cited elsewhere in this article. The image of Mirabai in Fig. 2 is a reworked (cropped) version of an image (file Meerabai.jpg) contributed to Wikimedia Commons by user Onef9day and made available by Creative Commons 3.0 license.

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  1. School of Public Health, University of California, 50 University Hall #7360, Berkeley, CA, 94720-7360, USA

    Doug Oman

  2. Hahn School of Nursing and Health Sciences/Beyster Institute of Nursing Research, University of San Diego, 5998 Alcala Park, San Diego, CA, 92110-2492, USA

    Jill E. Bormann

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Oman, D., Bormann, J.E. Eknath Easwaran’s Mantram and Passage Meditation as Applied Indian Psychology: Psycho-Spiritual and Health Effects. Psychol Stud 63, 94–108 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12646-018-0448-8

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